interiors

The Ideas blog on the NY times published an article, How Puritans Turned Capitalist which I responded to: From my own informal research on country measures using OECD data: In developing countries, industry and work are essential to the wealth of the nation, but once countries reach a certain level of affluence, i.e, are considered developed, work and industry become negative correlates of welfare.

The post, First They Came For The Climate Scientists which I responded to: Einstein was a fuzzy-headed liberal, and that's a good thing. Liberals are open to experience, e.g., have open minds, like to travel, and enjoy novelty, unlike conservatives, who tend be closed to new experiences. This also correlates to some degree with intelligence and to a non-literal intellect. Maybe there is something underlying this, like corporal punishment, but this in many ways explains the rabid stupidity and regressiveness of conservatives' beliefs.

The Ideas blog on the NY times published an article, Prisoners of White Guilt which I responded to: Without guilt, and similar emotions, we would simply be avaricious and vicious marauders. If it wasn't for the awareness of the past misdeeds, we would simply repeat the atrocities of our rapacious greed and inhumanity. One could better argue why we could do without the Nietzsche-like ego.

The Well blog on the NY times published an article, Switch Sports After Injury? Never! which I responded to: Although I appear as a single-sport person to many, I've always had a bit of a need for change, and paired with my inevitable stress injuries that came from just running, or biking, or rowing, I gladly changed sports before I did serious damage. Even then, my relatively extensive training knowledge - I was certified as a personal trainer through ACE in the early 90's - taught me the need to training hard-easy, with intervals days followed by something longer and lighter, as well as active recovery. I recently met someone who claimed to play four (4) hours of aggressive tennis almost daily. He related that he had developed a nagging injury and wanted to know my suggestion for resolving it. When I suggested he should takes some days easy, or replace tennis with weight-training, he was adamant that he could mange with his current regimen of icing and stretching, eve...

The Ideas blog on the NY times published an article, Are Western Minds Different? which I responded to: It would be better if you had printed, or at least corrected, the acronym, WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic). Although the more open-minded and academic would accept this as likely true and significant, we live in a country of the very narrow-minded - maybe most humans are - unable to consider things from other viewpoints. Those close-minded, hedgehogs won't be impacted by the fact that people are different. It's a lost nuance....

The Economist has an article, The rich are different from you and me , on possible differences between classes in giving. Rather than taking a position, which is the wont of most commenters, a review of all the posts gives a good sense of the readers beliefs. Various suggested reasons: - The rich are rich because they are cheap - The rich lack compassion for the poor because they don't experience poverty. - The rich lack compassion for the poor because the poor are unlike themselves - Neo-conservative values have tilted us toward "Greed is good." - But the rich give more. Bill Gates and Warren buffet redeem us all. - The rich believe people get what they deserve - The rich enjoy their relative societal position - ...even more so the larger the difference - Overreliance on subjects from the developed world skews research.

A response to Mind the Gap , a review of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger : At one time, as an MBA student with academic leanings, I considered researching and publishing an analysis using Hofstede's cultural dimensions and economic outcomes. What I found was that economic inequality, as measured by the GINI coefficient, correlated strongly with negative social outcomes. Trying to explain the underlying social dimension in developed countries, excluding Japan because of the vast differences in culture, it seemed that masculine (gender-divided) cultures were more unequal, but the correlation was only about .3. Intuitively, it seems obvious that the children of Britain are grossly unequal and the least social-outcome positive, and although the Northern European states are more equal and more socially positive, France and its 'children', Belgium and Canada, also have better social outcomes and lower inequality than the Anglo-Saxon states.